Heroes of Might and Magic

Heroes of Might and Magic is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy setting and the first appearance of the series on the Game Boy Color. In concept, rules and gameplay it is based closely on the original PC game, but has controls and graphics adapted to the handheld and comes with its own set of scenarios.

As in the original game, players control one of four warlords and must defeat the other three to win a scenario. Heroes are the central units of the game and are used to explore the top-down map, gather treasure and resources, claim mines, find artifacts and fight battles against roaming creatures or enemy heroes. The player’s castles are used to recruit new heroes and to produce units to both defend the castles and make up the heroes’ armies. Castles can be upgraded by adding new buildings, allowing for different and more powerful units to be built. Battles take place on special tactical screens and allow attacker and defender to give movement and attacking orders to each group of units. Heroes can employ magic spells during battles, but otherwise don’t take part in the fights directly. By gaining experience, heroes level up RPG-style, increasing the power of their armies in the process.

The game does not include a campaign like the PC version, but instead comes with a selection of 31 freely selectable scenarios designed especially for the handheld. These are rated according to difficulty (6 easy, 17 medium, 8 hard) and map size. The opponent’s intelligence and the amount of initial resources are customizable. Games can be saved to battery-backed RAM, for which three save slots are available.